top of page
ireland 2.jpeg
lizbeth goodman 2.jpg

PROF LIZBETH GOODMAN

BA, MA, MLitt, PhD

SMARTlab Founder and Director (Ireland, UK and International) UCD Chair of Creative Technology Innovation, Professor of Education (Design for Inclusion), Executive of the Innovation Academy

Inclusive Design Education Leadership

Lizbeth Goodman is Chair of Creative Technology Innovation and Full Professor of Inclusive Design  for Education at University College Dublin (Ireland), where she directs the Inclusive Design Research  Centre of Ireland at UCD (IDRC) within the College of Engineering and Architecture, in collaboration  with SMARTlab. She is Programme Director for the Thematic PhD in the College of E&A. She has  held a Personal Chair in Creative Technology Innovation, with a focus on practice-based research into  the future of Inclusive Interdisciplinary Research and Education, since 2005. She is also Director of  Equality, Diversity and Inclusion for MME at UCD. 

She currently Chairs the Women in Science, Technology and Innovation taskforce for the AERAP  programme of the European commission and parliament. She recently served as Academic Chair of  the Marie Curie ASSISTID Programme for the DOCTRID Research Institute: the first top tier research  institute bridging the Republic and Northern Ireland. Also, on behalf of UCD and the national  universities network, she was elected to Chair the Social Sciences Panel of the Royal Irish Academy in  2012.  

Directing Research for the Future of Higher Education:  

Previously, she was Director of Research for Futurelab – Lord David Puttnam’s thinktank for the  future of Education in the UK- and served in that capacity on the Prime Minister’s SHINE Panel.  Futurelab brought the most innovative teachers our of schools, trained them as researchers and  creative technologists, and worked in close cooperation with the Parliamentary Working Group on  Education, BECTA and the linked policy making departments of UK government, as well as with the  National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. She led Futurelab’s research through a  time of radical change in the funding of research and education in the UK (2008-10).  

Industry Research/CSR Global Impact Achievements:  

For seven years, Professor Goodman worked with Microsoft Research and Microsoft CSR/Unlimited  Potential on their largest ever community engagement project- (Clubtech), which has so far  transformed the education of over 7 million children and young people worldwide using interactive  and ‘live’ media training tools; Microsoft still cites this as their most impactful programme to date.  She has since led strategic partnerships and funded research and impact projects with the BBC, RTE,  TG4, Intel, IBM, Microsoft et al.  

She also founded and directed the first open source, open access rapid manufacturing/digital  materialisation lab in the UK as part of her MAGIC Playroom initiative (Multimedia and Games  Innovation Centre, London Docklands 2005-10).

Publications & Impact: She has written and edited 14 books for Routledge,  Faber&Faber, Polity Press, Intellect et al, and many peer-reviewed papers, and serves  on the editorial board of New Theatre Quarterly for Cambridge University Press and  on the Leonoardo Senior Advisory Panel.  

Her main Awards and Top Achievements:  

Professor Goodman was named Woman of the Decade by the Women’s forum – WEF. in 2019. In 2020 she was named to the President of Egypts’ Award. 

In 2008, she was awarded the top industry prizes for Best Woman in the Academic  and Public Sectors, and Outstanding Woman in Technology by Blackberry Rim and a  global industry panel. She was selected by a global panel of industry, academic  and NGO experts as one of the CSR Global Top 50 Most Talented Social Innovators:  awarded in Mumbai in February 2015. Back in 2003 she was honoured in Times  Square, NYC with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Volunteer Service  to Women and Children.  

bottom of page